Search results for: Western "civilization"

Western “Civilization” or Lessons on History and a Blind Eye

WN: Another now-and-then article. An excerpt: We Westerners live in a civilization of vaunted global human rights and universal equality. The reality could not be further from the truth. “Western civilization doth protest too much, methinks” to paraphrase Shakespeare. Or to quote Mahatma Gandhi’s response to, “What do you think of Western civilization?”: “I think […]

Jarhead, Montréal Shooting Spree, and Western Civilization

It was while descending from a hike up Elk Mountain in the eastern Fraser Valley of British Columbia that someone shared about his son, one of Canada’s finest trained élite soldiers, who had recently returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan. His son said the movie Jarhead would be the closest to depicting accurately […]

Fatal Discord Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind

Book Review of: Fatal Discord Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind WN: My friend Ron Dart sent me the fascinating book review of a crucial book for understanding contemporary Western culture: Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind. Please read review below. Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for […]

Engelhardt, A Hellfire World

By Tom Engelhardt photo above: ‘THEY ARE ALL DEAD’: Harrowing leaked footage shows US drone strikes in Afghanistan as pilot admits killing two civilians & child by mistake; Imogen Braddick WN: What can one say? God damn the monstrous capacity of the West (of course elsewhere too!) to cold-bloodedly commit mass murder via drone strike […]

Life Under the Bomb Means a Life of Resistance

Published on Thursday, August 06, 2020 by Common Dreams by Rev. John Dear photo above: “Our message over the years has been simple and urgent: Nuclear weapons have totally failed us. They don’t make us safer; they don’t provide jobs; they don’t make us more secure—these are age-old lies. Instead they bankrupt us, economically and […]

The Bombs of August 1945

image above: wm.org.uk WN: This was written by Howard Zinn. You may also find it here. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki stand as the two greatest one-time mass murders in history. Yet they cannot publicly be so named without huge backlash. What kind of mostrosity is Western “civilization” to have for even a moment […]

Rwanda Dispatches May 18 to July 12, 2018

At 30 years on to this day, April 7, 2024, the Rwanda Genocide broke out, that saw more than 1 million Rwandans murdered. CBC did the interview you see below. 30 years after Rwandan genocide, Roméo Dallaire feels ‘rage’ amid global crises | Watch (msn.com) Roméo Dallaire led the UN’s peacekeeping mission when more than […]

Easter Song and Reflections on the Resurrection

***NOTE: Please check out the footnotes for additional, more detailed commentary. Also, there are poetry and songs in the final footnote; and four additional songs below that.*** Please also see two great sermons, one on Good Friday, the other on Easter Sunday, by my colleague Randy Klassen: both in the context of criminal/restorative justice. Easter […]

The Mumbai Bombs, July 2006

July 12, 2006 Dear Editor: Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Peter MacKay predictably was the pot that called the kettle black in (otherwise legitimately) condemning the bombing horror in Mumbai this week. Last July Prime Minister Tony Blair likewise as hypocritically called the London bombings “barbaric attacks.” On September 1, 1939, President Roosevelt similarly wrote […]

Paper and Story: “The Sex Offender as Scapegoat”

 John 12:20 – 33; John 11:49-52: 49But one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all! 50You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” 51Caiaphas did not say this on […]

Legacy of Shame:

October 19, 2021 by Kenn Orphan photo above: Photograph Source: Reagan White House Photographs – Public Domain WN: Saint Augustine recounts this story of Empire: The king asked the fellow, “What is your idea, in infesting the sea?” And the pirate answered, with uninhibited insolence, “the same as yours, in infesting the earth! But because […]

9/11 was a test:

Essay by Carlos Lozada Illustration above: by Patrik Svensson Sept. 3, 2021 [pullquote]. . . the official response to 9/11 unleashed some of its worst qualities: deception, brutality, arrogance, ignorance, delusion, overreach and carelessness.[/pullquote]WN: Below are excerpts from an outstanding essay by a Pulitzer Prizer winner for criticism in 2019. But the last lines, though […]

Empire or Humanity?

By Howard Zinn Posted on August 15, 2021 image above from the Movie Poster: The Fall of the American Empire WN: A character in the movie highlighted says: “That’s what destroyed the United States: money.” Now greed, fear and power—these three–remain for every empire known to humanity. But the greatest of these is Greed. And […]

Concerning Life

by David Cayley June 12, 2021 photo above and to the right (clickable): Cover of David Cayley’s new (massive) book on Ivan Illich:  a brilliant critic of modernity; polyglot; priest; educator; gadfly; peripatetic nomad; (should be called) Doctor of the Church–though adamantly refused by him; saint–above all friend to an array of those who knew […]

Gospel as Counter-Narrative to Empire

SEARCH and ARCHIVES options are at the bottom of all website pages. The website is dedicated to: The Gospel as Counter-Narrative to Empire.     More on Empire below. PLEASE NOTE: the Sitemap. There is also a list of all Book Reviews separately, and alongside each post. You may search the Blog too. Please consider […]

“The Apocalypse Has Begun”:

by David Cayley January 2, 2016 WN: This is a highly instructive essay. There is much on my website about David Cayley’s writings. Please see as well his masterful and massive book on Ivan Illich: Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey. excerpts: Ivan Illich, Christ and Anti-Christ, René Girard  This article was written for The Palgrave […]

Why Canada’s special forces ‘shadow army’ is still fighting ISIS

By Adnan R. Khan May 11, 2021 photo above: Spec Ops Magazine WN: In short, Canada’s Special Operations Regiment (CSOR), are a bunch of trained hitmen. There is no declared war Canada is in1. Testimonials are ubiquitous that intelligence gathered by CSOR and others by its very nature is often faulty, frequently manipulated, at best […]

Return the National Parks to the Tribes

Story by David Treuer May 2021 Issue Editor’s note: This article is part of a new series called “Who Owns America’s Wilderness?” photo above: Katy Grannan–Glacier National Park, in Montana, as seen from the Blackfeet Reservation, near Duck Lake. WN: It’s hard to fathom the horror of White genocide against the Indigenous of North America. […]

Trump’s Secret Rules for Drone Strikes Outside War Zones Are Disclosed

By Charlie Savage May 1, 2021 photo above: Targeted killings away from conventional war zones have been a central feature of the sprawling war on terrorism, raising legal and policy questions that remain in flux. Credit… Janis Laizans/Reuters WN: Of course the use of drones–as any aerial bombing–invariably murders civilians–often vast numbers. Two classic studies […]

Opinion: Prolonged solitary confinement is torture. It’s time for all states to ban it.

Opinion by Tammie Gregg and Donna Lieberman April 28, 2021 at 5:00 a.m. PDT image above: Julie Lai for The Washington Post WN: My wife Esther and I felt uniquely fortunate to have attended the Conference below: CURE International Conference Costa Rica 2017 Over 40 prison reform advocates representing a dozen countries participated in CURE’s 7th […]

Jesus Was a Victim of Empire. Acknowledging This Should Transform Christianity.

Jesus Was a Victim of Empire. Acknowledging This Should Transform Christianity. By Christine Mungai, Truthout Part of the Series: Religion’s Role in the Struggle for Justice December 16, 2020 photo above: howafrica.com WN: This is the central theme of this website! A significant portion of what follows is from the previous highlighted part. There is […]

Why this ‘genius’ scholar is mapping out the world’s largest jail system

photo above: Kelly Lytle Hernández, who received the MacArthur ‘genius’ grant, views prison abolition through the eyes of rebels Fri 11 Oct 2019 by Sam Levin WN: In a revised forthcoming publication by Wipf and Stock Publishers, namely Volume One of Justice That Transforms, I write: Longtime Restorative Justice promoter Howard Zehr once directly critiqued […]

The case for capping all prison sentences at 20 years

The case for capping all prison sentences at 20 years America’s prison sentences are far too long. It’s time to do something about it. By German Lopez; @germanrlopez; german.lopez@vox.com Feb 12, 2019, 7:30am EST image above: Christina Animashaun/Vox WN: The article highlighted is eminently reasonable, the evidence-based research solid, the way forward worldwide hopeful in […]

The Doctrine of Discovery, Manifest Destiny, and American Exceptionalism

Posted on July 21, 2015 by christian hegemony Challenging Christian Hegemony Practical tools for recognizing and resisting Christian dominance WN: Every time I read an essay so well presented as that highlighted below (and so beyond tragic!), as a committed follower of Jesus, I know that I don’t have to wear the blame, but I […]

Erasmus: Wild Bird

WN: I had the privilege of editing, copy-editing, writing the Foreword, and publishing on Amazon/Kindle, Ron Dart’s excellent book on Erasmus. Ron describes 10 points about Erasmus in this brief video, done in his home, December 19. 2017: Below is my Foreword, then Ron’s Introduction. And finally, there is a quote from another article on […]

Pope Denounces ‘Mentality of Fear’ Caused by Nuclear Regimes, Urges Disarmament

Published on Friday, November 10, 2017 by Common Dreams At a seminar at the Vatican, Pope Francis praised the U.N.’s recent anti-nuclear weapons treaty by Julia Conley, staff writer photo above: Pope Francis called for nuclear disarmament at a Vatican summit on Friday, a week after an emotional anti-war speech at a military cemetery in […]

On 9/11: How We Hyped Terrorism and Slighted the Real Threat: Climate Change

SEP 11, 2017 Juan Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan and the proprietor of the Informed Comment e-zine. He has written extensively on modern Islamic movements in Egypt, the Persian Gulf and South Asia and has given numerous media interviews on the war on terrorism and […]

The Fundamentalists Holding Us Back from a Climate Change Solution

The evangelical Christian movement has been at war with environmentalism for decades—but the stakes have never been higher. By ALLIE CONTI illustrated by LIA KANTROWITZ Aug 20 2017, 7:15pm WN: It is truly tragic to see US politics swayed by a minority of religious climate change deniers – out of all proportion to their numbers. […]

Select Bibliography of Key Restorative Justice Works

Select Bibliography of Key Restorative Justice Works Compiled by Wayne Northey WN: Today, I updated a bibliography, especially weighted towards theological and generally academic works, that I have appreciated. Compilation of this list began decades ago. I think most are still discoverable, the links current. It is copied below, and there is a link to […]

Restorative Justice Then, Now and A Dream

WN: A massive body of Restorative Justice literature has emerged. A superb early study is Restoring Justice (Strong and Van Ness, 1997). A great early overview of the wider context is The Expanding Prison (Cayley, 1998). The first major study was Changing Lenses (Zehr, 1990) – considered a classic. The two best Christian theological studies […]

For America’s Sake, We Need Answers about Russia. Now.

Why we must now ask famous questions that so bedeviled Richard Nixon: What did Donald Trump know and when did he know it? Published on Tuesday, February 14, 2017 by  Common Dreams By Michael Winship image above: Russian President Vladimir Putin. ‘The bottom line is that Putin is far shrewder than Trump,’ writes Winship. (Image: […]

The London Bombs, July 2005

By Wayne Northey July 9, 2005 Dear Editor: Prime Minister Tony Blair hypocritically called the London bombings “barbaric attacks.” On September 1, 1939, President Roosevelt similarly wrote to the major powers that aerial bombing of civilians had “profoundly shocked the conscience of humanity” and was “inhuman barbarism.” He later as disingenuously referred to the December 7, 1941 […]

Boycott Chicken!

This again a now-and-then piece. An excerpt: I told him of an organization in America that marched annually in a death penalty state. One of those was born-again Governor George Bush’s Texas, whose Huntsville was site of the most “killing fields” in the history of American governors. One could not be a member, I explained, […]

A Modest Proposal Lite

WN: Another now-and-then article. An excerpt: In Western civilization, logic and ethics are usually mutually exclusive, while ideology and ethics are invariably bedfellows. Take Michael Ignatieff for instance, a great Canadian intellectual and current Liberal Party leadership hopeful. He salutes the United States as Empire-Lite (title of one of his books), and applauds its Nation-Building […]

All Allied/NATO Political Leaders Since World War II are Racist and Nepotistic

WN: The rest of the title reads: (and so are their supporting constituents); OR: Tell Me it Isn’t So, and I’ll Tell You About 120,000 Civilian Bombing Deaths, August, 1945 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and 5,000 Civilian Bombing Deaths, Fall, 2001, in Afghanistan; OR: What Do You Think of Western Civilization? – It Would Be […]

Restorative Reintegration

Sixth International Conference on Restorative Justice, “Best Practices in Restorative Justice”, June 1, 2003 photo above: reintegrationaustralia.com.au An excerpt: For over 25 years, the terminology of “Restorative Justice” has had increasingly wider acceptance and resonance within criminal justice jurisdictions around the world. As has come widely to be acknowledged, Restorative Justice is more than an […]